The Insane Train

by Sheldon Russell

  Seth checked his pocket. “I don’t have matches, Hook.”

  “There’s some next to the heating stove,” Hook said.

  Seth rose to leave. “About that girl, Elizabeth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I heard you found her.”

  “We found her.”

  Seth got to the door and turned. “I talked to her a bit at the cafeteria, Hook. She said she drank cranberry juice to make her tumor go away.”

  “I guess it didn’t,” Hook said.

  “No, I guess not, but I sure didn’t have her pegged as a jumper,” he said, closing the door.

  Hook worked his way down the aisle to where Andrea sat talking to Anna, who turned in her seat and threw her hands up when she saw Hook.

  “It’s that man,” she said.

  “Anna, just stop,” Andrea said, shaking her head. “He’s our friend.”

  “He’s going to stab me with his hook,” she said, scrunching down in her seat.

  Lucy shifted her doll and looked up to see who had come to kill Anna.

  “Esther stole all the toilet paper,” Lucy said.

  “Kill Esther,” Anna said.

  “Esther’s been catching bugs under the seats,” Lucy said.

  Ruth stuck out her chest. “Seth’s been looking at my breasts,” she said.

  “His hook would go clear through me,” Anna said.

  “Stop,” Andrea said.

  “He threw Elizabeth off the bridge with his hook,” Anna said.

  Andrea’s eyes teared up. “It was my fault, Hook. I shouldn’t have left her alone.”

  “Look, Andrea, you can’t take responsibility for the whole world. It’s too big and too awful. No one blames you for Elizabeth’s death.”

  “I do,” Anna said.

  “Hush,” Andrea said.

  “I had your car switched next to the caboose,” Hook said.

  Andrea smiled. “I noticed.”

  “I let Seth go back to the caboose for a smoke. I’m thinking he might give you a break later if you’d like.”

  “I’d like,” she said.

  “Elizabeth’s head exploded,” Anna said.

  Roy unlocked the door and let Hook into the security ward. Frankie peered over the top of his paper and then turned back without a word.

  “Where’s Doctor Helms?” Hook asked.

  “Gone for meds,” Roy said. “Wait too long, and it’s a Paddy fight around here.”

  Hook moved along the aisle. Robert Smith sat with his head down, a string of saliva drooling from his mouth. Van Diefendorf snored, his head against the window.

  “Are they being exercised?” Hook asked.

  “We take them one at a time for a bathroom break in the supply car, walk them up and down a bit, but they don’t seem to know one way or the other. That chlorine’s mighty hard stuff.”

  “Tell Doctor Helms I need you down there with Santos. He’s due a change off now and then.”

  “That suits me fine,” Roy said. “That goddang Frankie hasn’t muttered a word the whole of the way.”

  As Hook went out, he ran into Helms returning with her hands full of medications.

  “If you need Roy, I guess we can manage,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Mr. Runyon, have you any idea how much longer it will be?”

  “Not much longer, Doctor Helms, providing we can keep things underhand.”

  That night Hook lay in his bunk listening to the steamer draw down as her governor kicked in against the grade. Mixer lay at his feet, the clack of the wheels having driven him into a deep sleep.

  Mixer traveled well, sleeping almost continuously while the train moved, but the moment the train stopped, he came alive to demand his run along the tracks. This arrangement worked fine so long as he didn’t spot some unfortunate creature trespassing on railroad property.

  When the knock came on the door, Mixer lifted his head.

  “It’s alright,” Hook said, opening the door.

  Andrea stood there, her arms folded against the cold that gathered between the cars.

  “They’re finally all asleep,” she said.

  “Hi,” he said, pushing Mixer back with his foot.

  Stooping down, Andrea gathered Mixer up. “It’s alright,” she said. “He must get lonesome in here by himself.”

  Mixer wagged from head to foot.

  “Yes,” Hook said. “He does.”

  “It feels wonderful just to be away for a moment,” she said, standing.

  “Could I fix you something? A drink? I’ve forty-year-old shine in the cabinet.”

  “No, thanks. Oh, can you see the train from the cupola?”

  “Would you like to look?”

  “I’d love to,” she said.

  They climbed the ladder, sharing the hard seat inside the cupola. Moonlight slid along the tops of the cars like a silver river.

  “It’s wonderful,” she said. “Look, you can see the engine from here.”

  “I sometimes come up here at sunrise and have my coffee,” he said.

  Settling in against him, she took his hand, her fingers cool and delicate.

  “Some life you lead.”

  “It suits me,” he said. “When I’m on the move like this, my troubles never quite catch up.”

  “Except when they’re on the move with you,” she said.

  “Well, it’s a living, and it has its rewards from time to time.”

  She turned, the gray of her eyes lit in the moonlight. “The thing is, it doesn’t fit you somehow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, exactly, the books maybe, the collecting, all that reading.”

  “Just curious about things,” he said. “Yard dogs aren’t worth a damn without curiosity, you know.”

  “Well,” she said, “I like that about you. I think I have you figured out, and then there’s a whole different layer, the way you think, the way you see the world.”

  Hook tilted her chin up with his finger. “You mind if I kiss you?”

  “I don’t believe I do.”

  He brushed his lips against hers, and she melted into him. He held her, and they watched the moon arch through the sky.

  “Hook,” she whispered, “I’m glad you’re here. I’m frightened sometimes about what might lie ahead.”

  He pulled her in close. “We’re all a little frightened of the future, Andrea. But we have no choice but to step into it. It’s the way of things.”

  She checked her watch in the moonlight. “I think my smoke break is up. I better get back.”

  “We’ll arrange another,” he said. “Seth’s got a strong habit.”

  At the door, Andrea lifted her eyes. “Good night,” she said.

  Hook climbed down from the caboose at the Flagstaff depot and filled his lungs with the crisp mountain air. The peaks lifted into the blue, and the smell of pine steeped the morning. Mixer took off in a run, weaving in and out of the cars.

  Hook walked up to the engine, where Frenchy was just coming down.

  “Morning, Frenchy,” he said.

  “Told you this ole girl would make her across the desert,” Frenchy said.

  “How long a layover, Frenchy?”

  “Going to grease the pig and give her a drink,” he said. “Regular maintenance. Me and the fireman ran our trick out. We’ll be hearing from the union soon enough.”

  “Maybe you can get this rust bucket there before I die of old age,” Hook said.

  Frenchy flipped the ash from his cigar. “At the rate you’re going there ain’t going to be any passengers left, anyway.”

  “Had you brought a decent train we’d been there by now,” Hook said.

  “Oh, sure. It’s my fault. Sometimes I figure I’ll just retire and move south.”

  “Give you a chance to visit with the wife more, wouldn’t it?” Hook said.

  “Oh, hell, she quit talking to me ten years ago.”

  “I’d like to stay a
nd visit, Frenchy, but I got to make a call to Eddie.”

  Hook sat across from the depot operator and dialed the phone.

  When Eddie came on, he said, “Division, Eddie Preston.”

  “Eddie, Hook here.”

  “Goddang it, Runyon, you know what time it is?”

  “Some of us don’t watch the clock, Eddie.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Flagstaff and lucky to be here. The Mormons crossed the desert faster than this ole kettle.”

  “We need those outfit cars, Runyon. They got rip-track sleeping in a hotel, twenty hands drinking whiskey and eating steak. It’s costing a goddang fortune. The big boys are not too happy. That makes me not happy. You see how it works?”

  “Listen, Eddie, we’ve had a little trouble along the way.”

  “What the hell you talking about?”

  “One of the inmates took a dive off a trestle.”

  “Oh, Christ. Hurt?”

  “Dead, Eddie, and the coyotes had a little overnight party to boot.”

  “Oh, Christ, and where was railroad security when all this was going on?”

  “Look, Eddie, this is not exactly a normal run you know. These people have problems. I can’t watch them every second.”

  “I’m the one with the problems, Runyon. Now we have lawsuits. You know how the big boys hate lawsuits.”

  “I doubt it, Eddie. She didn’t have any family that cared one way or the other.”

  “She?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me know if anything comes up. Maybe we can get it headed off.”

  “Yeah, I will, Eddie.”

  “Listen,” he said. “I get this call from Barstow about some goddang dog chewing up a city cop on railroad property. You know anything about that?”

  “I don’t know about dogs, Eddie, except maybe that one in Amarillo.”

  “Work on your sense of humor, Runyon, and call me when you get that work train freed up. Try keeping the goddang passengers inside the cars, will you?”

  Hook pushed the phone back over to the operator, lit a cigarette, and looked out the window.

  The phone rang, and the operator picked it up. “Who?

  “Yeah, he’s here. It’s for you, Hook,” he said. “Sheriff over to Needles.”

  “Hello, Sheriff,” Hook said. “What did you find out?”

  “That Frankie Yager fellow,” he said.

  “Is he clean?”

  “No big stuff, Hook, breaking and entering, shoplifting, shit like that. He was booted out of the state university.”

  “What for?”

  “Bogus application. Forged his grade point.”

  “I used to sign my own report cards,” Hook said.

  “You didn’t threaten to kill the dean, though, did you?”

  “They don’t have them in seventh grade,” he said. “Did Yager get time over it?”

  “You know these goddang judges, Hook.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I thought I smelled something.”

  “And I checked with the American Board of Psychiatry like you asked.”

  “Yeah?”

  “A Doctor Bria Helms had contacted them about Baldwin,” he said.

  “Thanks, Sheriff.”

  “There is one other thing.”

  Hook slipped his cigarettes into his pocket. “Go on, Sheriff.”

  “That autopsy came back.”

  “And?”

  “That girl didn’t die from no fall, Hook. Somebody strangled her.”

  24

  As soon as they were under way, Hook asked Baldwin and Helms to meet him in the supply car. Helms sat down and folded her hands in her lap.

  She lifted her chin. “I hope this is important, Mr. Runyon. It’s time for medications, and we’re quite shorthanded.”

  “I wouldn’t have requested the meeting did I not think it necessary,” Hook said.

  “We’ve had another breakdown?” Baldwin asked, looking up through his brows.

  “No breakdown,” Hook said.

  “Then what is so urgent?” Helms asked.

  “Before I left Needles, I requested that the sheriff do a little checking on my behalf,” Hook said.

  “Checking?” Baldwin said.

  “For one thing, I asked to have an autopsy conducted on Elizabeth.”

  Helms stood. “What on earth for?”

  “Sometimes you get a feel,” he said. “Turns out Elizabeth didn’t commit suicide. She was strangled, dead before she went off the trestle.”

  “Good God,” Baldwin said, dropping his forehead into his hands.

  “Are you suggesting murder?” Doctor Helms asked.

  “People don’t strangle themselves,” Hook said.

  “But who would want to kill Elizabeth?” Helms asked.

  “I also requested a criminal check on Frankie Yager.”

  “Frankie?” Helms said.

  Hook rose and walked to the window of the supply car. Outside, the empty beauty of the prairie raced past. Frenchy had the bullgine wound tight.

  “I have a responsibility here,” he said. “When someone dies on my train, I take it personally.

  “Yager has a background of petty thievery, and he forged his transcript. He also sent his dean a threatening letter.”

  “Oh?” Baldwin said. “I don’t remember seeing anything about this when he applied with us.”

  “The usual background checks were done,” Helms said. “None of this came to light.”

  “He most likely forged his application here as well,” Hook said.

  “Surely, you’re not suggesting that Frankie had something to do with that girl’s death?” Baldwin asked.

  “At the moment, I have no proof of anything,” he said.

  “Well, it is railroad business,” Baldwin said. “I see no reason to exclude anyone on this train from questioning.”

  “I must get back with the medications,” Helms said. “Is the supply cabinet open?”

  “Yes,” Baldwin said.

  Steadying herself against the pitch of the car, Helms counted out the meds. Her shoulders were bent forward of the rest of her body as if she carried a great weight. Hook decided he had no clear idea of her age.

  She closed the door to the cabinet, paused, and then reopened it to retrieve pills from a green bottle high up on the top shelf.

  When she got to the door, she turned, “I want it understood that my inmates must not be interrogated, Mr. Runyon. They are ill and not able to defend themselves.”

  “It’s patient safety that concerns me the most, Doctor Helms. Perhaps you could ask Frankie to come to my caboose when you get back?”

  Hook lay in his bunk dipping into Clarke’s Bloody Mohawk, which he’d found under the seat in one of the outfit cars. His eyes had grown weary under the dim lantern light. Eddie had promised to upgrade the caboose with an electric generator, but it had never come to pass.

  When he rose to put his book away, someone knocked at the door. He opened it to find Frankie Yager, his hair whipping from the wind that blew between the cars.

  “You wanted to see me?” he asked above the clatter of the wheels.

  “Come in,” Hook said.

  “It’s time for bathroom breaks in the ward,” he said, stepping in. “What do you want?”

  “A few questions,” Hook said.

  “Look, Runyon, I got my hands full running them criminals back and forth to the john. You got something on your mind, maybe you could just get on with it.”

  Hook lit a cigarette, his match flaring in the black of Frankie’s eyes.

  “Alright,” he said. “Turns out you weren’t altogether honest about your history when you applied for a job with Baldwin.”

  “Ain’t your business, is it?” he said.

  “Shoplifting,” Hook said. “Important stuff like that.”

  “You called me down here for that?”

  “And then there’s a matter of forging your transcript and sending a little t
hank you note to the dean.”

  Frankie scoffed. “No one ever proved that was me,” he said. “Now, if you’re through, I got to get back.”

  “I’m not through,” Hook said.

  Frankie squared his shoulders. “You are far as I’m concerned.”

  Hook put his cigarette out in the tray.

  “Don’t let this arm fool you,” he said. “I’m not one of your boys you can push around.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “About that girl that died,” Hook said. “I’m not sure it was an accident, you see.”

  Frankie turned to open the door. Hook slammed it shut with his foot.

  “I’m not finished,” he said. “Turns out someone strangled her before throwing her off the trestle.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” he said. “I’ve been up there taking that scum on piss breaks. Don’t believe me? Ask Helms.”

  “Maybe you ran into Elizabeth on one of those breaks,” Hook said, watching his eyes. “Maybe you decided to have a little fun and it got out of hand.”

  “And maybe I didn’t,” he said, his eyes darting in the lamplight. “Anyway, they said she had a tumor the size of a grapefruit, so what the hell difference does all this make?”

  “And so you just helped her along a little?” Hook said.

  Frankie lowered his arms and clinched his fists at his side.

  “Maybe she likes freaks, Runyon. Maybe you had her all to yourself.”

  Hook reached for him, clamping Frankie’s ear in his prosthesis, yanking him over. Frankie squealed, and his face turned red. Mixer growled, his hackles rising.

  “I don’t like you much,” Hook said. “Go ahead and give me a reason to feed your fuckin’ ear to the dog.” Shoving him to the door, he said, “Now, get out of my caboose.”

  After he’d gone, Hook sat on the bunk listening to the clack of the wheels. Mixer rested his chin on Hook’s knee and studied him, his brows peaking this way and that.

  “I should have let you eat the son of a bitch,” he said.

  Hook poured himself a coffee, which begged for a dollop of shine. He read a little again, but he couldn’t get the image of the girl’s body out of his mind.

  He blew out the lantern and turned on his side. He thought about Yager, his eyes, the smell of him, like stale bread.